


Arkham

by CavannaRose



Series: Assorted DC Fics [8]
Category: Batman (Comics), The Joker - Fandom
Genre: Arkham Asylum, Gen, POV First Person, Psychologists & Psychiatrists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-08
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-24 15:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17707049
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CavannaRose/pseuds/CavannaRose
Summary: At first, I thought it was a joke. Then we fought. Then I accused them of trying to get me killed. I wasn’t a tiny blonde with big blue eyes, I wasn’t afraid of that particular ending, but enough of the staff had ended up bloody after an exchange with the clown that I wasn’t looking to add myself to their line up. Not me. Find some idiot hoping to make a break through. That was when the warden explained a few things to me. Left a nasty taste in my mouth, that conversation. It had the effect he wanted, though. I’m towing the line, falling in, and prepping for my first session with a man that has caused more death and destruction in his life than I have the capacity to envision. Fantastic.





	1. Chapter 1

He was bored, anyone could see that by watching the tapes of him around Arkham. He was bored, but he was waiting for something, otherwise he probably already would have broken out again, just like he always did. They never got a satisfying answer out of him, no matter how many shrinks went in to try to piece him together, and then there was the disaster with Quinzel. At first she seemed to be getting through to him, all fresh faced and eager that she was, but it didn’t end well. Not for either of them. She’d lost everything, and then he’d gotten bored. Tried to kill her. Now she was off somewhere with Ivy, relearning how to live life, and he was back here, back where I was the newest sucker to get assigned to his case.

I’d fought it. I wasn’t here for the accolades or the experience, I was here because when my ex took the house and the dog, all I wanted was to get as far from where I’d been as I could get. Arkham didn’t care that my credentials came from a Canadian school with no recognition, they just needed another warm body to churn through the meat grinder. Maybe ten years ago I would’ve cared, but lately nothing really seemed to matter. I knew what kind of creatures lived at Arkham. I wouldn’t be re-integrating any of them into society. At best, I’d have some interesting conversations to take home and populate my nightmares with.

Then they gave me him. At first, I thought it was a joke. Then we fought. Then I accused them of trying to get me killed. I wasn’t a tiny blonde with big blue eyes, I wasn’t afraid of that particular ending, but enough of the staff had ended up bloody after an exchange with the clown that I wasn’t looking to add myself to their line up. Not me. Find some idiot hoping to make a break through. That was when the warden explained a few things to me. Left a nasty taste in my mouth, that conversation. It had the effect he wanted, though. I’m towing the line, falling in, and prepping for my first session with a man that has caused more death and destruction in his life than I have the capacity to envision. Fantastic.

I set the stage carefully. That’s important when you’re dealing with a showman like the Joker. I wore my most aggressive pantsuit, all clean lines and high collars, and slicked my undercut back just like a man. Uber butch chic, as my ex would call it, may he burn in hell forever. So I was stocky, broad shouldered, and masculine. Didn’t mean I had to pretend to be anything other than what I was. I sat at the table in the interrogation room, I flat out refused to do this anywhere near my office. One pad of paper. One pen. Nothing extra. This fucker wasn’t getting a single glance at anything he hadn’t seen a million times before.

Then he strolled in, looking like a king coming to court, and it took everything in me not to roll my eyes. It was quite a show, his air of nonchalance, his studied ennui, but that’s all it was. I could see the way his eyes swept the room, taking in all the details, and the lack thereof. He didn’t comment, didn’t even change facial expression, but I saw it all just the same. It was enough to get him into the room, now we just had to see if I had enough interesting questions to keep him talking until I could feasibly end this farce. The man didn’t need therapy, therapy was for people who could be helped.

“Good Afternoon Mister Joker. My name is Doctor Cavanaugh. Would you care to sit?” I phrased it formally, polite. Just like he was a client and this was my office at some sort of business. Anyone who watches the news knows the man likes to play games, so I figured it would be easier if I set out the parameters. Of course, the clown has a tendency to colour outside the lines, but we’ll see how this plays out. This close up, I can see the scars on his face, cleaned of the heavy makeup he preferred. He might have been good looking, once upon a time, but now he just looked to be a mess. The green was fading from his hair, but it was neat and clean. Even the orange jumpsuit seemed more like a suit the way he wore it. Classy.

“Hmm…. Isn’t that interesting? So very polite. I do appreciate the little… niceties.” Hearing his voice in person isn’t the same as hearing it on the news. There’s a quality to it that could never be transmitted by wires and electric impulses. It’s subtle, and it kind of slides up the spine like it has a right to be there, all clammy and warm and nestled against the skin. I wanted to shake it off, but instead I simply pulled my lips back into a semblance of a smile and nodded towards the seat opposite me. He was watching me now, and there was no way I was going to flinch while his gaze was on me. Give them nothing. Instead, I watched in return as he folded himself into the seat, his movements were precise and graceful, not a motion wasted. I mentally flipped through all the files I read on him, wondering which version of the Joker I was going to get today.

“I have every intention of treating you with respect, Mister Joker. I’d appreciate it if you would extend me the same courtesy. We’ll get on much better during these sessions if we don’t spend half of them hissing at one another.” It was a bold play. That’s what Doctor Edwards said, when I told him how I was going to go in. Of course, I’m pretty sure Doctor Edwards would consider fruit on a salad a bold play, the man was dry as a desert breeze and half as interesting. Still, he was the only one amidst my new colleagues willing to discuss my new patients with me, so I would take what I got and be grateful.

“Is that how it’s going to be?” There’s honest curiosity in his voice, but I don’t trust it. He’s testing the waters, seeing if I’m interesting enough to play with. Again I wonder which version of the Joker he’ll play for me today. At least he seems to be at least pretending at pleasantry for now. I can work around that. “Respect would be an amiable change to the brutish hauling me about and picking at my brain for some hint of what I am. Are we going to do the whole small talk song and dance, Doctor…?”

He leaned forward, one hand extended, as if offering to shake my own. Instead, I smile at him and fold my hands together in front of me, over the pen I’d brought to take notes, and raise an eyebrow at the clown. “I’ve heard your little diatribe over the futility and meaningless drivel that passes for social niceties. It was one of your more poignant pieces, if one ignored the burning bodies that you had chosen to make the point with. Of course, if you’ve changed your mind about such things since then, I would make myself amenable to discussing the weather and latest sports results at your preference.”

He laughed then, not _the_ laugh, thank whatever gods might be out there listening, but it was still a laugh. He sprawled across the chair, his expression pleased. The rest of the session actually did pass in small talk. For someone shut up in a windowless room twenty three hours a day, he was uniquely informed about local weather patterns. He was even up to date on the local baseball scores, both the Major League teams, and the local college heroes. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but I felt that this early in the game it was best to indulge him when he deigned to play the game I had offered. We disagreed on the merits of trading a particular third baseman, but at least he didn’t seem bored. Nor was anything we discussed particularly pertinent to either one of us.

Basically, I managed to leave my first face to face meeting with the Joker without either of us saying anything that the other could use, and I will call that a win any day. I looked up the stats back in my office later, and in the end, I think he might have been right about trading Bobby, but that was interesting for a whole different reason.


	2. Chapter 2

My other patients were, in their own way, just as interesting as the clown. Tetch insisted on referring to me as your majesty and bowing, but if he thought I was about to order his head off, he wasn’t likely to act out during our sessions so I let it go for now. There were worse people to be mistaken for than the Queen of Hearts. Once we were through the opening niceties, he was more than willing to talk about his mind control technology. Fuck but I wish the criminals in Gotham weren’t so damn smart. I’m going to have to spend all my spare time studying, and I already have so little of it.

Wesker was just plain sad. I called him Arnold and listened to him go on and on about that damn dummy for his whole hour. He honestly felt lost without it, and I suspected that we wouldn’t be able to get much out of him unless we allowed him to have the thing in session with him. I put a note in the file to get clearance from the big boss on that one. I didn’t want to trigger a homicidal episode, but I was hoping I could prove to the deluded man that the dummy was nothing but plastic, wood and stuffing.

I only had the three on my plate right now, the clown taking up the balance of my allotted time. I should have more patients, particularly with the load some of my colleagues were carrying, but apparently once you got assigned to the laughing madman, they wanted you to focus on him above most others. They gave me the other two because they were lost causes, I’m pretty sure. I’d show them, though. Just because they weren’t as high profile or weirdly appealing as the Joker didn’t mean those men deserved less attention. I spent my first night home studying all the details I could find on mind control technology, I didn’t want to slip in my discussion with Tetch the next day. I ended up passing out at the table, a move that I was definitely going to regret.

I wake up and my spine is complaining like an overburdened mule. I have to spend twice as long under the hot water in the shower to get anywhere close enough to limber enough to get dressed, and I’m swearing the whole time. My phone is almost dead and I’m going to be late for work, what a great way to start out my second day. Almost makes day one and meeting the clown seem like a breeze. I hurriedly stuff my notes into my bag and shrug my way into another bland pantsuit. Beige on beige for this particularly stirring number, and tug the longer hair on my head up into a ponytail, since I don’t have time to gel it back. For a brief second I was almost tempted to leave it down, but that was an altogether too relaxed mien to project while I’m still sussing out pecking order with the clown.

It’s funny, how I can think that like there’s any question over who is going to come out on top. I’ll be lucky to keep my head above water, swimming around in that swamp he calls a brain. The best I can hope for is that I hold onto myself and keep him at arm’s length until the next poor idiot gets assigned to take a crack at him. It’s not that I’m going to try to do my job poorly, I just don’t hold out much hope of getting through to him… I’m not even sure that I would want to. I certainly wasn’t going to give him any part of my personal life to deconstruct. I’d seen the havoc he’d wreaked upon former psychiatrists, and I don’t mean the blonde.

On the bus over to the Asylum I read through his case notes again, and what a clusterfuck they are. It really seemed like not a single person that sat down across from the clown had read through anything anyone else had written. If they had, they wouldn’t buy the cheap dramas he was selling them for half a second. I don’t even want the job and I know that you can’t get anywhere without seeing what those that came before managed to wriggle out of the patient. Idiots. Some of the stories are humorous, and I think I can pick out a few plots straight from a VC Andrews novel. Had he seriously read VC Andrews? I wouldn’t put it past him.

He certainly didn’t have any respect for institutionalized education. That seemed to be a constant undercurrent in a lot of his pieces. A disdain for the school system cropped up through more than one report, and I made a note about that. How had people missed it previously? With no records for the clown, or even a real name, we had no way of knowing how much conventional learning he’d had, if any. He was certainly brilliant, but that didn’t mean anything. I wonder if he had been homeschooled, or maybe he’d done the college song and dance and that’s where he’d finally snapped. I scribbled my notes in cramped writing across the page, almost missing my stop with the discovery.

It was tempting to jump on that concept right away, to flash it in front of him and see what he did with that, but I didn’t want to draw his attention just yet. Getting too informed with the way the clown worked could earn you a quick trip to the morgue. Of course, that meant that if I wanted to discuss the possibilities, I was going to have to develop some semblance of rapport with him, a truly intimidating thought. I left my notes in a locked box in my desk, I don’t trust the warden not to have a copy of the desk keys. I don’t want to share my discovery just yet. It’s too fresh, too interesting. Maybe I’m being selfish, or maybe just stupid. Who knows?

He was agitated when he came in today. There was an almost electric undercurrent to the room when he walked in. His deliberate movements were snappier, and it had the guards on edge. “Doc Cavanaugh, you want for one of us to stand in today? He’s in a mood and could get dangerous.” The big guard… Carruthers, it took me a minute to remember his name, seemed honestly concerned, but he was being the opposite of helpful.

“Please don’t speak about my patient as if he is not in the room. Mister Joker, would you prefer company today, or is it okay for Mr. Carruthers to leave us in peace for our conversation today?” I tried to watch him to gauge for a reaction without blatantly watching him. I know from his records that he sometimes reacts badly if he feels like he’s under a microscope, but I do my best to exude a calm and competent energy. Whatever that fucking meant.

He smiled, and it was an uncomfortable expression. More like he was baring his teeth than anything else, and even I couldn’t stop the shiver that ran down my spine. I saw the flash in his eyes that said he’d noticed, and I cursed myself for a hundred kinds of fools for letting that much out. When he sprawled comfortably across the chair, suddenly relaxed seeming, I knew he’d gotten what he’d set out for, a reaction. I wondered how much of his agitation had been feigned, and how much had been sincere, but had simply been brushed away when a distraction was offered. “Much obliged, Maggie. Can I call you Maggie? Margaret seems too stuffy, and Doctor Cavanaugh is such a rigid name.”

I didn’t flinch when he used my first name, it would have been easy enough to find out, especially for him. Instead I gave him what I could only hope was an easy smile and settled into my own chair, waving for Carruthers to leave us be for now. He clearly didn’t want to go, but luckily as the actual doctor I still had some ability to set the rules. At least with the guards, if not with the patients. I weighed the pros and cons about arguing over my name with the clown. No one called me Maggie, not since I’d been much younger. My friends called me Meg, but I wasn’t about to offer that tidbit. Instead I smiled. “If you’re more comfortable calling me Maggie, by all means go ahead, but since I only have the one name to call you, please forgive me if I continue to refer to you as Mister Joker.”

He laughed, an aggressively mirthful sound that made my feet twitch, like they were going to run to the door without me. “Very delicately done, Maggie. No outright demand for a name, not even a hint of a request, just a subtle dig of disappointment. I didn’t think you had that kind of subtlety in you.” He was eyeing me up now, and I definitely didn’t like it, my eyes flashed to the door of their own volition, checking to see if Carruthers was still there. I had no doubt he caught the look, just like I was pretty sure he’d noticed my feet, despite the fact that they were supposedly hidden behind the desk.

The Joker leaned forward, and it took everything in my power not to lean away, especially since I could smell his minty fresh breath. Nice to know he’d brushed his teeth before coming to meet me. With some doctors he’d gone days without washing, they had detailed notes about his lank, greasy hair and his general odor and lack of concern with hygiene. Had they not seen him on the news? The man was obsessed with his appearance. Anything less than perfection was clearly an act, even I could see that. “Now, Maggie,” he seemed to be rolling my name around his mouth, tasting how it felt there, and it was just this side of perverse. “Whatever shall we discuss today?”

Unable to bear the proximity any longer, I leaned back in my chair, trying to make the gesture look casual as I pinned his gaze with my own. “As pleasant as yesterday’s chat was, I thought we’d actually discuss some of these big productions you’ve been putting on. It’s clear you have some kind of message you’re trying to relay, and it’s just as clear that it is not being picked up. How does it make you feel when you go out of your way to show the world something and they continue to miss the point?”

I can see from the way he stiffens momentarily that I’ve caught him by surprise. Asked him something that he hasn’t been asked before. I feel a little thrill of triumph, amplified by the discovery on the bus this morning, but I quell it. No point gloating, he hadn’t even answered the question yet after all, and there was no guarantee that he would. He watched me for a minute, eyes sharp and fingers steepled in front of his chin as he considered his answer. I could only hope that if he was about to spin me a web of lies, I’d be able to dig my way out of them.


End file.
